Second #1692, 28:12 “Ladies and gentlemen, the Blue Lady. Miss Dorothy Vallens.” And so Dorothy is introduced by the Master of Ceremonies, played by Jean-Pierre Viale, in what appears to be his only movie role. As one hand touches the vintage suspension-mount microphone, and one hand beckons Dorothy, the frame captures the tipping point of the film, as darkness is about to spill into Sandy’s and Jeffrey’s world as Dorothy takes the stage. Those curtains, otherworldly in the way they echo the blue velvet curtains from the film’s opening credits, signify a range of electrified meanings, none of them happy. […]
Second #1645, 27:25 A slow dissolve, from Sandy’s house (she has just agreed to break her date with Mike and go to the Slow Club with Jeffrey) and the red neon sign of the Slow Club, in its elegant—but somehow slightly off-kilter–cursive. The dissolve, deriving from the pre-cinema technology of the magic lantern (there’s a nice example of a magic lantern dissolve about half-way down the webpage) to create transitions or to suggest time-lapsed effects, and isn’t there something magic in the very act of “dissolving” time? Two images: Sandy’s house, steady and unmoving, slowly overtaken by the Slow Club, […]
(Martha Marcy May Marlene earned Sean Durkin a Best Director award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, where it was picked up for distribution by Fox Searchlight. It opened theatrically on Friday, October 21, 2011. Visit the film’s official website to learn more. EDITOR’S NOTE: HTN co-founder Ted Hope is an executive producer on the film.) Looking at Elizabeth Olsen, you know exactly who she’s related to. It’s a trait that lends the actress both familiarity and strangeness—as though you know her but you don’t. It also makes her perfect for the title role in Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May […]
Second #1598, 26:38 The open space surrounding the car. The feeling of freedom. The two car mirrors, one of them reflecting Jeffrey’s face. The pink barrette in Sandy’s hair, and the impossible beauty of the length of her arm. The light between the branches and leaves of the trees, and the way those trees fill most of the frame. The vanishing point near the middle of the screen, doubling back on us via the rear view mirror. Sandy and Jeffrey talk in a car, but not a moving car. The emergence of mechanical reproduction is accompanied by modernity’s increasing understanding […]
This week I give you a bonus post and contest. In keeping with what seems to be our “Do Your Homework” theme, we have Grant Edmonds from MixMyFilm.com with some quick sound tips from a sound mixer’s perspective. Sound is always the microbudget killer, often transforming a wonderfully acted and shot film into something no one wants to see or hear. We’ve talked about its importance and ways to get good sound in the field, but we have yet to discuss the value of a great sound mix and how to prepare for it. In keeping with the Microbudget spirit, […]
Second #1551, 25:51 Jeffrey: I’m gonna try to sneak in tonight. It’s Friday. Do you have a date? Sandy: Yeah. I do. Jeffrey: Well. (pause) That does that. * “The historian of cinema faces an appalling problem. Seeking in his subject some principle of intelligibility, he is obliged to make himself responsible for every frame of film in existence. For the history of cinema consists precisely of every film that has ever been made, for any purpose whatever.” –Hollis Frampton * For a time, in the 1980s, it seemed as if Reagan’s victory would be permanent. There was comfort in […]
What If 5th Graders Ruled Your Storyworld? By Lance Weiler
Last night marked the opening of the 2011 Philadelphia Film Festival, and although this year kicked off with the decidedly non-genre film Like Crazy (as opposed to 2010, which began with the enjoyably batshit Black Swan), the festival has a history of featuring well-curated action, horror, science fiction, fantasy and just plain weird fare. For those lucky enough to attend the festival, or simply tracking the program for edification purposes, a good place to start is the festival’s dedicated genre lineup, once going by the name “Danger After Dark” but re-dubbed “The Graveyard Shift” after political infighting dramatically split the group […]
Second #1504, 25:04 The woman in the background carrying groceries has a story to tell. She has her own secrets, in that purse, and for approximately two seconds she becomes a part of Blue Velvet. Perhaps an unremembered part, called forth in the same way that Douglas Gordon’s 24 Hour Psycho—which slowed down Psycho to two frames per second, stretching the film’s duration to 24 hours—made it possible to see details in a new way. In Point Omega, Don DeLillo captures the dislocating feeling of looking very, very closely at something, brought about by a character watching 24 Hour Psycho: […]
(Distributed by IFC Midnight, The Catechism Cataclysm opens theatrically at the IFC Center on Wednesday, October 19, 2011. It becomes available on VOD beginning October 26th.) At the heart of Todd Rohal’s work is a very basic concept lost on today’s major theatrical audience who are hypnotized by the tired routine of familiar narrative structure. It’s so simple that it could be lost in the ether of the week’s releases comprised of cults and the continued ascension of the Catfish crew, but I’ll lay it out: Anything Goes. It’s a mindset that will definitely help you take on The Catechism […]